Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 4/3/24

Cloudy | Duncan Creek | Last Edition | Skatepark Project | Viraporn Truck | Solomon's Seal | Juror Compliance | Noyo Harbor | Caspar Dump | Woodworking Exhibit | Special Place | Coast Cinemas | Wake Robin | Restored Mercury | Yesterday's Catch | Pleasant Afternoons | Reflected Sunlight | April Fools | Capricious Law | Wilt Parentage | Yellow Zone | Cajun Cats | Like Lazarus | Fusion Test | Journalism Denied | Supreme Footwear | Two-State Solution | Old Woman | War Over | Summer Music

UNSEASONABLY COLD STORM will bring light amounts of low elevation snowfall late tonight into Thursday. A few thunderstorms will also bring a slight potential for small hail on Thursday. Periods of strong and blustery northwest and north winds are expected today through Thursday over portions of the area. Much below normal temperatures are forecast today through the weekend. A warming and drying is expected early to mid next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Humpday morning I have a foggy 51F. Cold temps are forecast for tomorrow, & some rain. Windy & cold Friday then slowly warming up into Sunday. Next week is looking dry.

ED NOTE: The last print edition of the mighty AVA will appear on the 1st of May. If you want to be included in the final paper-paper we must have your contribution no later than noon, April 28th.

IT’S SPRING BREAK in Anderson Valley and kids have so few options for staying connected and active while their parents work all day. Looking forward to the day when we have a skatepark here -- a meeting place to be with friends, and something fun to do! This video from The Skatepark Project gets right to the heart of what a skatepark could mean for AV... Community connection and well-being. Gratitude to Tony Hawk and his foundation for spreading the goodness far and wide.

— Noor Dawood

VIRAPORN CLOSING END OF JUNE: Viraporn is hoping to get a food truck in the future and we can still get their outstanding food from her. (Elaine Stevens, MCN chatline)

COURT PLANS TO LAUNCH A JUROR COMPLIANCE PROGRAM

Since jury trials have resumed post-pandemic, the number of individuals honoring their summons and appearing for jury duty has declined to an alarmingly low percentage. In a few instances, trials could not go forward because the number of potential jurors was insufficient to impanel a jury. Therefore, the court is planning to implement a juror compliance program that will ensure that the number of potential jurors is sufficient to allow trials to be conducted.  Mendocino Superior Court Jury Commissioner Kim Turner states, “The lack of response by potential jurors is alarming and impacts our ability to adjudicate cases, especially criminal cases.  This situation has become so dire the court has no choice but to set up a compliance program that  will compel a better rate of response from potential jurors.” 

California law requires that trial courts in each county reach out to their community members to serve on jury duty. However, over the past several years, the number of eligible jurors that have chosen to disregard their jury summons notification has increased significantly. Serving on a jury is an important civic duty of all US citizens that are between the ages of 18 and 75 and that are not eligible for an exemption due to a medical condition, inability to communicate in  English, caregiving for an ill or disabled family member or caring for a young child.  

In Mendocino, the court may call jurors as often as once a year. However, the court is on a one day, one trial jury system, which means that if a juror is called, appears for jury duty and is not assigned to a trial, the juror will be excused for at least the next 12 months. Even if sent to a  courtroom for possible empanelment, jurors have an opportunity to tell the judge if they have financial or travel hardships that make it difficult to serve on a trial. In many instances, judges excuse those jurors from service. Jury duty is not just an obligation; it is a chance to participate in a meaningful way in the Mendocino community. In fact, most people who serve on a jury report that the experience was worthwhile – interesting and a rare opportunity to participate in ensuring a fair and impartial outcome for defendants, victims and the general public. 

California Code of Civil Procedure section 209 gives courts the authority to impose sanctions on individuals that fail to show up for jury duty. In the next few months, the court will reach out to potential jurors that do not respond to their summons to encourage them to reschedule their service for a later date. If that outreach is not successful, the court will send one more urgent request that the juror comply with the legal requirement to serve. If that second attempt is not successful, the court will send notices to jurors to appear in front of a judge to explain why they did not respond to these repeated notices. At that hearing, a judge may order the juror to appear on the next date when jurors are needed or may fine the juror up to $1,500 for failure to comply with this civic duty. Presiding Judge Keith Faulder states, “I would much rather potential jurors  honor their commitment and appear for jury duty than sanction them for failure to take this  obligation seriously.”

The evolution of the right to an impartial jury of one’s peers reaches all the way back to the  Magna Carta in 1215 AD. While the Magna Carta did not institute the jury system we know today, it introduced the concept that community members needed to be a part of the judicial process to ensure fairness and prevent the king’s dominion of the courts. Jury duty is also enshrined in the US Constitution in Articles 6 and 7. The framers of the Constitution considered the fundamental right to an impartial jury to be one of the cornerstones of self-governance in our new Republic. This important feature of our system of government must be perpetuated and should be honored and respected by all.  

For more information contact:

Kim Turner
Court Executive Officer
100 N. State Street, Room 303 Ukiah, CA 95482

(707) 463-4664

CASPAR TRANSFER STATION IMPROVEMENTS PLANNING, ENVIRONMENTAL, DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

Department Transportation

Category Request for Proposals

RFP Number DOT 240001-2

Start Date 04/02/2024 8:00 AM

Close Date 05/03/2024 4:30 PM

RFP Post Status Open

See full Request for Proposal for more information.

Additional Information:

Caspar Ortho 1993-95

CA Well Logs and Construction Diagrams_1993 FCP1CAP

Caspar Use Permit Mod 2006

2006 Coastal Commission Appeal

Project Summary:

Mendocino County is seeking a qualified consultant to perform planning, environmental, design, and engineering services for improvements to the Caspar Transfer Station. The scope of work for the project includes the following key tasks:

Task 1 – Project Management and Coordination 

Task 2 – Data Review, Facility Assessment, and Conceptual Plans 

Task 3 – Field and Geotechnical Surveys 

Task 4 – Preliminary Design Plans and Cost Estimate 

Task 5 – CEQA Compliance & Permitting 

Task 6 – Final Design Plans and Specifications 

Task 7 – Bid Assistance

Submission Information:

Vendors must submit four (4) copies of their proposal: three (3) complete paper copies with original vendor signature, and one (1) complete copy on USB Flash Drive. Proposals must be formatted in accordance with the instructions of this Request for Proposal. Promotional materials may be attached, but are not necessary and will not be considered as meeting any of the requirements of this Request for Proposal. Proposals must be enclosed in a sealed envelope or package, clearly marked “Mendocino County RFP No. DOT 240001-2”, and delivered by 4:30 p.m. on May 3, 2024, to: 

Mendocino County Department of Transportation

340 Lake Mendocino Drive

Ukiah, CA 95482-9432

Late or facsimile proposals will not be accepted. It is the proposer’s responsibility to assure that its proposal is delivered and received at the location specified herein, on or before the date and hour set. Proposals received after the date and time specified will not be considered. 

THE SOUL OF WOODWORKING: New exhibit narrates 40-year history of Krenov School

On Friday, April 5, from 5 to 8 p.m., the Grace Hudson Museum will offer an opening reception for its new exhibit, Deep Roots, Spreading Branches: Fine Woodworking of the Krenov School. As with all First Fridays, the event is free, with music from the Marjo Wilson Trio and refreshments, including beer provided by North Coast Brewing Company.  

What began as the College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking program, under the guidance of renowned furniture maker and author James Krenov (1920-2009), evolved into the Krenov School of Fine Woodworking at Mendocino College. Deep Roots, Spreading Branches looks at the 40-plus-year history of this internationally renowned school, located in Ft. Bragg, and features pieces by over 40 different woodworkers, including James Krenov, graduates of the program, and past and present faculty.

In addition to learning about Krenov’s ideas and principles of woodworking, which became the foundation of the school and its curriculum, museum visitors will be able to find out how students experienced the program and where it led them after they graduated. An oral history video station will allow visitors to hear directly from former students and instructors, and then to dive deeper into woodworking techniques through the use of interactive elements.

Diving deeper into woodworking techniques is what the Krenov School is all about. Laura Mays, who came from Ireland to study at the school in 2001 and returned to fill the position of director in 2011, remarks that the Krenov School's approach is all about "respecting the wood," and having "a very caring approach to the material. You're not going to work against your own nature or the nature of the wood." This approach is comparable to the Slow Food movement and related movements in recent years, which invite people to slow down and experience the depth and richness of the traditional crafts that many have abandoned for the conveniences of the modern world. 

Mays emphasizes that the instruction methods and tools of the school have remained mostly unchanged since its inception in 1981. She describes the band saw as "our go-to machine," which is "versatile and safe." Shop manager Todd Sorenson keeps the school's six band saws and all other machines "tuned to perfection," though all work is ultimately finished with hand tools.  Students sharpen their own planes and chisels, and make small knives and other tools. They also make their own planes with blades from Hock Tools, a local company, which gives the wood "a very silky cut finish." 

This emphasis on tools and the importance of selecting and caring for them is the mark of every dedicated craftsperson. Museum Curator Alyssa Boge also notes how students "focused on their tools to create the best piece possible." In creating the exhibit, Boge, along with Museum Director David Burton, met with an advisory committee comprised of current and former Krenov School students, instructors and administrators, and James Krenov's daughter, Tina. Those meetings prompted questions and discussions around, "How do you learn these techniques? How does this choice affect what is visible and not visible?" Boge notes that the physicality of the project is important. "If you create something physical you see it through to the end. There is a sense of accomplishment you get from doing something that can be really hard." Even so, Boge continues, "It's not about just making a table; it's about making something with soul." Or as Krenov put it, "If one pays enough attention to the richness of wood, to the tools, to the marvel of one’s own hands and eye, all these things come together so that a person’s work becomes that person; that person’s message."

Deep Roots, Spreading Branches will be on display through August 18. Several other public programs are planned, including a virtual program with Krenov biographer Brendan Gaffney on April 18; a tool-sharpening workshop at the Krenov School in Ft. Bragg on May 25; and virtual panel discussions with Krenov School instructors and students, past and present, in July and August. The Museum also encourages visitors to see the Krenov School’s annual spring student show at Highlight Gallery in Mendocino Village running from May 18 to 27.

Deep Roots, Spreading Branches has been made possible by the generosity of The Krenov Foundation, The Sun House Guild, Grace Hudson Museum Members, the Krenov School, Mendocino College, and Lie-Neilsen Toolworks.

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call 467-2836.

DONALD CRUSER: I tell people to drive east on Talmage Road and give yourself a tour of the old state mental hospital grounds so you can see first hand how the state of California used to care for the mentally ill. The grounds and dormitories are strikingly beautiful. Easily enough rooms to house all the homeless in several northern counties. The beautiful environment with expansive lawns and huge, magnificent oak trees exudes serenity and healing. Only one of a number of state mental hospitals that Reagan shut down, putting those in need out on the street. A heartless action taken by man who insisted on a new gigantic abode of a governor’s mansion looking down on the American River, and lived like a king in a palace on the Pacific Ocean shore. There is a special place in hell for him.

COAST CINEMA GOING UP FOR SALE

To our wonderful customers and friends,

After a great deal of consideration, our family has made the heart-wrenching decision to seek a buyer for our beloved Coast Cinemas.

In the late seventies, we ventured up from the Bay Area and bought what was then a single screen movie theatre. Thanks to the support of our local movie-loving community, we were able to develop it into a beautiful four screen state of the art movie theatre. 

In the meantime, our family has grown older. It’s now time for us to retire and relinquish the theatre to someone else. We are hoping to find a buyer who will continue to operate as a movie theatre, but ultimately the market will dictate whether it stays a theatre, or the building is put to another use. 

This has been an extremely difficult decision for our family. For nearly five decades, along with our amazing employees, we have loved and nurtured this theatre, our partnership with the Mendocino Film Festival, and the wonderful North Coast community of movie lovers.

This journey may take some time to conclude. In the meantime, we hope to see you at the movies!

With love, Laurie, Max and Tom

* * *

ANOTHER ERA IT’S THE END OF.

Editor,

I see the notice that it’s up for sale. Maybe someone will buy it and keep it going, and it isn’t the end after all.

Some high points in my memory of Coast Cinema, then Coast Twin Cinemas, then Coast Cinemas:

In 1981, maybe ‘82, they played a double bill: Four Friends; and Those Lips, Those Eyes. They both made a big impression on me. Look them up and see them if you can. Four Friends is about the immigrant experience in the 1960s, from the point of view of a young man named Danilo, who’s brought from Poland by his mother to be met at the train station by his father, who Danilo has never met, who works in a steel mill and is dark-spirited, hard, disillusioned. On the drive into town, the boy, in the back seat, sees a sign for Chicago and cries out happily, “Chee-kuh-go!” then breathes this word in awe and wonder: America! The father, driving, agreeing on the word but not the meaning, says bitterly, ominously, “America.” When Danilo is in school he has three friends. Georgia seemed to me like Melanie Safka, the singer, who ten years before that I had kind of a thing for. Sakina, at the Community School, felt a little like that to me, the same kind of person, it seemed like. Things don’t go well or badly for Danilo, at least for most of the film, just increasingly weirdly. It was the sixties. The hammer-blows of weirdness as it goes along knock the wind out of you. The scene where he’s driving a taxi, stopped because a protest parade/riot is happening, passing, and an American flag in flames washes across the windshield in jerky slow motion as he has the expression on his face that I’m sure you can imagine. I don’t remember whether he’s lost his eye yet and has the eyepatch or not, at that point.

Those Lips, Those Eyes is about a young man spending a summer working in a theater company. Frank Langella is an actor in his forties, treated with disrespect by the young actors. He teaches them all a thing or two. It’s pretty good. I remember much later seeing Me and Orson Welles and thinking that they’re not exactly the same story but they feel a lot the same. I always like movies about people filming movies or putting on plays. Bullets Over Broadway, for example, or Illuminata, or The Stunt Man, or The Fall/ (about a stunt man in 1916), or Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Robin Williams’ Popeye came when there were two theater rooms and it was Coast Twin Cinemas. I was there with Swift. The sound went off and everyone just sat there watching the film with the sound off. I waited to see if anybody else would say or do anything. No, for ten minutes. So I went up to the projection booths. There was nobody up there nor anywhere else in the building except the show room, nor outside. It was dreamlike, like a Soviet situation, the world so quiet, and the existing people silent, resigned to their fate. I could have figured it out and tried to fix it but I didn’t want to take the chance of breaking something. I waited out in the lobby until the projectionist came back from wherever, mentioned the sound, and he fixed it. I think that was Barry the guitar teacher.

I saw Blue Velvet there. My girlfriend from before Juanita was still pissed at me, came in and sat directly behind us in the theater, muttering under her breath. Afterward she followed us to my car and fell on her ass trying to jerk my car door open, because Juanita, fresh from L.A. with all the instincts thereof, had reached over pushed the electric lock down immediately we were inside.

I saw Alex Proyas’ Dark City there, and City of Lost Children, my two favorite movies ever.

I saw Forest Gump there. Fort Bragg Librarian Sylvia Kozak-Budd went past us afterward, outside in the parking lot. I said, “What did you think?” (about the movie). Sylvia smiled, gestured with a finger in her mouth, her tongue sticking out, and a comical retching motion. I said, “That bad, huh?” She said, “The worst.” I liked it.

One time after they’d split the building up into many little theaters Juanita and I went to see Titanic. Weather was wild that night, and just at the point in the film where water was filling up the corridors and metal was twisting and groaning and the ship’s lights were flickering on and off, the real-world storm knocked out electricity to the theater. The theater went black, and everyone sat in the dark for a moment, listening to the rain and wind pelting the building, so much quieter and safer than just before. Ten or twenty minutes later they got power going again and the film picked up where it left off, banging and groaning and crashing and sinking again. Besides that, the sex scene in the car in the hold is the memory hook for me. When the windows are fogged up from their steam and Kate Winslet slaps the glass so her hand appears, like the alien’s tentacle-hand in Arrival. If it’s her hand. I know they use hand models for things like that sometimes. Maybe it’s the boy’s hand.

Sean, who made the newspaper The Monthly Rag, and whose gang of friends made four black-and-white slasher-horror movies in Fort Bragg (A Killer in Our Midst 1, 2 and 3, and Vampyre, forced down his OCD to go to places in public like the movies at the Coast Cinemas. I was there once when he had to leave because one of the counter people had a bandaid on her (or his) finger. That stuck in my mind because ten or fifteen years before that I learned never to use bandaids while cooking in restaurants but just tape the whole finger up with white cloth tape, because it happens that you look down and the bandaid is gone, and there are steam-table tubs all around, and food on plates, and a bucket of cracked eggs and all, and where is the bandaid. But that wasn’t why it was hard for him; it was part of the disorder. He taught all his friends to always flush a toilet with their tennis shoe. To this day, whenever I put on a bandaid I think of Sean and popcorn. And in a public restroom I flush with my shoe. (Aside: I was just in Costco in Santa Rosa. Except for one other man I was the only person in the whole building with a mask on. When I went into the restroom the man who went in before me, a customer, not a worker, coughed lustily and phlegmily on his hand, wiped his hand on his shirt, used the urinal, presumably with at least one hand, and then waltzed blithely past the soap and sinks, to go out into the world and, you know, touch other things. You don’t have to flush the urinals there; they go on and off by themselves. It might be that’s why people who don’t wash their hands don’t wash their hands. They’re not reminded.)

Oh, right, this I clearly remember: Whenever I was at the movies in Fort Bragg the bathroom was sparkling clean. Sparkling. Though I didn’t often use a restroom in a public place in those days. It’s only now that I’m old that I don’t have any problem releasing my bladder when other people are around. I used to plan around it, but you can’t plan for everything all the time. Eventually problems solve themselves by being replaced with other problems. The restroom in the Reading Cinema in Rohnert Park, that just closed permanently, offered me the experience about ten years ago of a floor sticky with urine (where it wasn’t awash from backed up toilets), and a full crowd pressing in and pressing out at the same time. Somebody in scheduling probably got fired for that. It was a long time ago; that’s not why they closed.

Steve Heckeroth showed a movie at Coast Cinemas once about the General Motors EV1, an electric car in the early 1990s that was ahead of its time and was obviously sabotaged as a production car. He gave a presentation about electric vehicles in general and his own in particular. He showed pictures of the carport at his little farm, whose roof was all solar panels, and his electric car, truck, electric tractor. I half-remember him saying, “I haven’t had to buy gas in ten years.” Or maybe it was five. I think of that whenever I read someone complaining that electric cars are stupid and pointless. There are parking lots all over anymore that are roofed with solar panels for the buildings they serve, and the chargers, more and more of them all the time, and panels on roofs. At Juanita’s place, the woman in the apartment downstairs that’s nearest the laundry shed just plugs her car in there at night. A woman who lived there before her got so angry when anyone ran the washing machine at night that nobody does anymore, so there’s no problem, plenty of electricity.

I haven’t called Coast Cinemas for a long time, but it used to be, I really liked calling for info about the movies playing, and the times. The number was easy to remember: 964-2019, because the library was 964-2020. Those are two important cultural institutions in any town: 1. the movie house (“Merry Christmas, you old movie house!”) and 2. the library (“He left the library to the folks of River City but he left all the books to her. Chaucer, Rabelais, BALLL-zac!”).

Marco McClean, Fort Bragg

BILL HOLCOMB’S BEAUTIFUL CAR 

by Bruce Anderson 

“Never had a hobby, but I love old cars,” Bill Holcomb begins, his eyes constantly drawn to a stunning 1956 Mercury convertible so perfectly beautiful in his driveway off Ornbaun Road in Boonville that it was almost as if the car were preening, somehow aware of the magnetic visual it presented.

“I like to look at ‘em, drive ‘em, and work on ‘em,” Bill adds for emphasis, making it clear that a hobby is one thing but his love of old cars is a passion, and passion is a big step up from mere past time.

Retired after years as a heavy equipment operator, and a skilled hands-on guy with an obvious gift for both making motor-powered things run and look good while they’re running, Bill explains that he found himself a little out of sorts after years of an 8-5 routine.

“I needed something to do. My wife, Eva, is always busy and there I was not so busy.”

One morning at the Philosopher’s Club in downtown Boonville, a pleasant little restaurant on the main drag sometimes known as the Redwood Drive-In, Bill Holcomb mentioned to Jerry Philbrick, the well-known Comptche logger, that he was looking for an old convertible to work on.

“I need something to do, Jerry. I’m retired. I want to fix up a convertible for car shows. Something from the 50’s” Bill remembers saying to the old logger one morning over a long breakfast.

Philbrick said he had just the thing sitting out in a barn at his Comptche ranch and Bill Holcomb nailed down the day and the exact time he could come out to have a look.

There, in Jerry Philbrick’s barn, were the remains of an American luxury car, a two-tone, 1956 Mercury hardtop convertible with the big engine. Dual pipes. Luminous radio dial. Continental tire kit on the back. The works. Make that a three-tone Merc; the interior was white, the lower body dominated by a dramatic orange called “persimmon orange,” the upper body a less dramatic but just as vivid blue.

Hey! It was the 50’s. We wore polka-dot Bermuda shorts and Argyle socks. Persimmon orange was an extremely cool color. Still is.

But in Philbrick’s barn, the Merc, the persimmon in its orange now a faded sunset orange-ish, existed in skeleton form. The car was a ghost of its once splendid self. An automotive has been.

Most of us wouldn’t have looked twice at the thing, let alone fallen in love with it. Bill fell, and fell hard.

He hauled the Merc’s exhausted carcass back to Boonville and went to work on it, visions of glorious re-birth keeping him at it long into the night.

“It had 85,000 miles on it when Philbrick pushed it up onto my trailer with his backhoe, “ Bill remembers. “In the 50’s 85,000 miles was a lot of use. You’d start thinking of trading them in at about 50,000 or 60,000 miles. I tore this one down to the frame. There was nothing left inside of it, but the frame was good, just rusted out where the water had sat in it.”

The vehicle’s history is as singular as its design. There are people who say all these cars were junk even when they were new, and it wasn’t until the imports that the American industry had to make cars that lasted longer than 50,000 or 60,000 miles. These people don’t get it. 50’s cars were about beauty and style, which is why people as different as Icelanders and Japanese pay top dollar for them.

“Jerry Philbrick,” Bill recalls, “told me he remembers the day his dad bought the car for his mom. Jerry was shipping out for Korea — the Korean War was on. Jerry and his folks had driven to San Francisco in Jerry’s car because Jerry was getting on a ship for the Far East. He was in the Army. The Philbrick’s planned it so Jerry’s parents would drive Jerry’s car back home to Comptche for him. The three of them were walking around on Van Ness Avenue waiting for Jerry to ship out when Jerry’s mom spotted this car in a showroom and said she just had to have it. His dad called the dealer and bought it right off the showroom floor for $3,800!”

But 43 years later, in Jerry Philbrick’s barn out in Comptche, the old Merc with the big engine — heck, gasoline was often as low as 11 cents a gallon — wasn’t in what you’d call mint condition.

“When Jerry’s mother no longer drove it,” Bill says, “Jerry’s dad put mud grips on it and drove it all over the ranch like it was a jeep. I probably took a thousand pounds of mud out from underneath it when I first got it back to Boonville.”

Bill Holcomb, as he washed away the accumulated years from the Mercury’s creaking frame, was a kid again himself, on his way back to that memorable era, the time of the great American automobile.

“No sir, this was a rich man’s car,” the 60-something Bill remarked, gesturing at his gleaming accomplishment in the driveway. “This is the car all us school boys dreamed of when we were driving Model A’s,” casually establishing his mechanical bona fides in an explanatory afterthought.

“In the 50’s all the schools had good machine shops and auto shops. A lot of us were lucky to graduate from high school let alone think about going on to college, so the high school shop classes taught us skills we could use to get good-paying jobs right out of high school. And darned if Ford didn’t make this car itself right in Los Angeles at the time. Had a factory there then, although I didn’t work in it.”

The long-time Boonville resident clearly knows his way around machinery. In a long career as a mechanic and heavy equipment operator, and blessed with the people skills that can’t be taught, Project Restore ‘56 Merc had exactly the right guy at the top. Bill quickly mobilized an impressive Anderson Valley team of helpers whose collective talents Bill organized to help him bring the Merc back to life. A surgery team, one might say, efficiently working on a patient.

Restoring a piece of art from 1956 is all art, and art is money. And time. And logistics. And automotive detective work. And research. And patience. And a virtual jeweler’s eye for detail, and nuance of detail. And the help of many skilled others, many of whom Bill found right here in Anderson Valley, a can-do community if there ever was one.

Bringing an old car back to life is not for lightweights. Bill had it all except, perhaps, the cash.

“There were times when I thought I might have to go back to work to pay for everything,” he laughs. “And there were a few times when I got the fish eye from my wife Eva about how much I was spending, but…”

But there was no stopping him. Bill jokes about going back to work to make this beautiful machine beautiful again, but one look at the final product and it’s obvious the guy would have worked three jobs to get it done.

Two years and four months and “at least $30,000” after being retrieved from its grave in Philbrick’s barn the Merc is all the way back!

And what a ride it’s been.

Maestro Holcomb on the re-creation of ‘56 Mercury Convertible, an American classic.

First, he did the research.

“I’ve got a stack of books probably two feet high. And I found the original book on this car. And I bought all the old repair manuals for it. Then, Tom Miller, a parts man, helped me track all the parts down.”

Knowing which parts were needed was a lot easier than locating them, which is where Bill’s formidable determination and Tom Miller’s savvy combined to form one unstoppable automotive sleuth. Together, the two 50’s-vintage Boonville men tracked down every part the old Merc needed and then they retrieved it from whichever obscure place in the country they’d found it. Bill and Tom conducted their search in every likely place, from libraries to cyber-space to remote auto wrecking yards. They even tracked down rumors of parts until they found every single thing Bill needed to authentically reassemble the beautacious ‘56.

Nearly every part thus relentlessly tracked down, captured and brought back to Boonville seems to have an intriguing story of its own.

“The hood came out of a place over in Williams,” Bill begins, reliving the discovery of each part of his four-wheeled puzzle. “Williams is a gold mine for us old car guys,” Bill adds with the slightly mad glint of a 19th century gold miner in his eyes.

“I got one piece of chrome out of New York. I called this guy up and asked him, ‘Do you have one of those lower chrome pieces for the bottom of the fender?’ He did. I bought it for $10 then, when it got to Boonville, I sent it over to a place in Marysville where they did all the chrome for me.”

“The interior? Ace Upholstery in Ukiah on Orr Springs Road. The one guy’s been sewing for 25 or 30 years. There’s just him and his brother. I was very impressed by the work they did. I told him I wanted deep tuck and roll, but he did it light tuck and roll because he said that’s the way it was done back in the 50’s.”

“He was right,” Bill chuckles. “The deep tuck and roll was what kids did back in the 50’s. I lived in Torrance when I was a kid. You could drive to Tijuana easy from there and get the tuck and roll done for two or three hundred bucks. But heck, a car only cost $1500 or so then. We’d save up and take our cars across the border to get our tuck and roll upholstery. Had to have it. But the rumor was that unless you stayed right there and watched them do it, they’d stuff horseshit in there and in the winter your seats would get wet and they’d start smelling! I don’t know if we believed that or not, but everybody said so.”

(“Tuck and roll” refers to a fancy form of car upholstery which was absolutely crucial in the 1950’s, cool guy vehicle. “Bitchin’,” they called it in LA.)

“That little light in the back I got that from a guy in L.A. named Ruben Martinez. He’s restoring a ‘56 Ford right now. Heckuva nice guy. I traded him a little piece of chrome off a ‘56 Ford I bought for parts for the Merc. He was thrilled because he couldn’t find that one piece of chrome he needed for that ‘56 Ford he was working on.”

“See that other little red thing there, the emergency light? I couldn’t find one anywhere, but I went up to Willits to get some parts out of an old Mercury and it had one on it. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

As the Mercury’s many parts were being assembled from near and far and redone for a luxurious new life on an old luxury car, a talented crew of locals pitched in.

“Mike Montana went through the engine for me. There’s a great mechanic right there. And he’s in Navarro! Lex Burger did the transmission. Lex is the other way out in Yorkville. Lou Fortin has an old Mercury over in Ukiah that he’s restored. He used to be principal of our elementary school in Boonville, and when he heard what I was doing he came over and helped me get mine right. Steve Rhoades, a Boonville guy, did the sandblasting on the body. Gotta be done right, not too fast, and Steve did a perfect job.”

Some of the stats: $5,000 in the chrome, $5,500 in paint, $3,000 in upholstery.

Labor?

Bill pauses, then, with a weary sigh in his voice, says, “I don’t want to even think about the cost of labor. I lost track of my hours a long time ago. I can tell you I’ve never seen one like this at any of the car shows. I’m told one in LA went for $80,000 and another one in San Francisco went for $70,000. Tell you the truth, I hate to talk about what I could get for it, though, because that’s not why I did it. I did it because I love it. It’s not for sale, and it won’t be for sale. I’ve always enjoyed going to car shows, but the one coming up in Willits will be my first show with something of my own to put out there. I already took it up to Willits not long ago to have the front end aligned, and they were more impressed by the dashboard than anything else I’d done! I took all the dash numbers out and repainted them by hand.”

As the grandfather of a pair of highly mobile, and highly eligible grandsons who live just down the road, Bill says he knows both of them would like to get behind the wheel, “But grandpa’s driving it for now.”

The Mercury’s distinctive three-tone paint job featuring “persimmon orange” was an adventure of its own.

“John Schnaubelt down at Airport Estates was a big help with the painting. If you want it to look right, to look real good, you’ve got to get professionals to do the finish work. Some day, I’m going to learn how to paint; I want to be able to spray paint a car. It doesn’t look too difficult but still you’ve got to know what you’re doing. They used to spray by hand back in the ‘50’s, especially a three-tone car like this one. Up here you’ve got blue, but we painted the persimmon first, and we had to mask it off so the blue didn’t run into it. And then we painted the inside white. I got scared when we started painting it. ‘Oh my god,’ I thought, ‘state orange!’ But when we put the chrome on it was just right. It’s quite a process. It took over a year at the paint shop alone to get the paint the way it’s supposed to look.

Project ‘56 Merc was meticulously accomplished in every detail, and radically improved in one — the radio.

“They wanted $180 to fix the radio. Well, the radio wasn’t very good to begin with in the 50’s cars, so I’m putting in a new one using a disk player with the rock and roll songs from the 50’s on it. You’ll turn on the old radio there behind the original dial on the dash and get a sound they didn’t have then.”

We didn’t dare go into it beyond a single oblique mention of Girls in relation to Cars circa 1956, but there was an instantly agreed upon statement that began, “If I’d had a car like this back then, and a sound system like the one that’s going in this car now, I’d…”

Any 50’s guy doesn’t need the rest of the sentence.

More prosaically, and to convey the painstaking process that went into the marvel now sitting on a quiet hill west of Boonville, a process requiring far more disciplined effort than luring the Queen of the Sock Hop out for a ride on a tuck and roll leather interior of an 1956 automobile, Bill points at a shiny fender.

“This one piece here took a whole day to put on. It’s perfect; you can’t tell where it was messed up,” he says, staring with a perfectionist’s eye at a seamlessly scrolled length of gleaming chrome.

Astonishing, really, this transformation of a rusted-out hulk of a car from half-a-century ago, but here it is in all its original magnificence, a little more than two years after Bill rolled it rusty, muddy, and battered, out of Jerry Philbrick’s Comptche barn.

Harley motorcycle people rightly claim there’s no sound as beguilingly original as the sound of a Harley engine, suggesting that its pistons make music to anyone with ears to hear it, but when Bill turned the key in the pristine ignition of his gorgeous ‘56 Mercury convertible, and its muffled twin pipes began to contentedly purr like lions after a very big meal, the sound was, well, transporting, and anyone who was young in that time is instantly 45 years younger.

Driving through Boonville, Bill down shifts at the Redwood Drive-in. Everyone looks out into the street and smiles. Everyone on the street stops and looks and grins at the beauty rolling by.

“More than 200 horsepower,” Bill chuckles. “Beautiful sound, isn’t it?” 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, April 2, 2024

MELISSA BROWN, Covelo. False personation of another, false ID.

NICOLE HAWKINS, Covelo. Controlled substance for sale.

JOSE LULEMARIN, Ukiah. DUI.

TONY NELSON, Ukiah. Grand theft, probation revocation.

MICHAEL PARKER, Ukiah. Shopping cart.

FREDDY PELAYO-RUIZ, Cloverdale/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

DAMION RAMIREZ, Willits. Domestic abuse.

JESUS RAMOS-RIVAS, Healdsburg/Ukiah. Paraphernalia, false ID, county parole violation.

ELISABETH SHOEMAKER, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

BRANDON STONE, Fort Bragg. Parole violation.

NORMA TESTROETE, Ukiah. Trespassing-refusing to leave. 

AYSSIA WHITE-OLSON, Laytonville. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

FORREST WILBERGER, Leggett. Failure to appear.

READY TO INTERVENE

Letting the Divine Absolute work through the body-mind complex without interference, there is nothing left to achieve. Contact me anytime if you wish to intervene in history. Am otherwise walking about Ukiah, California enjoying the pleasant early spring afternoons. ~Hare Krishna~

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

MIKE GENIELLA:

OKAY, OKAY. McCovey Cove Chronicles got me good. 

“Giants Ban children from attending games at Oracle Park…”

WHAT THE HELL!?! Tell me this is an April Fool’s post. It was a thrill for our boys to get to go to a Giants game. Money. Money. Money. Not my Giants organization anymore.

Debra Skodack Burnes, a former Colorado newspaper colleague, reminded me tongue in cheek a few minutes ago that maybe it’s payback time. You see, years ago, a group of us at the Colorado Springs Gazette decided to do a prank April Fool’s story and ran it on the front page. It was about how the local pickle crop was doing. We illustrated it with a “pickle” tree. The zany story was written by the late legendary reporter Don Branning, who once roamed the US working for newspapers and writing fantastic offbeat tales. Branning had ties to Sonoma County and is buried at the old cemetery in Sonoma. Another participant in the caper was current Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey. He was a young buck Colorado journalist at the time. The pickle story was great fun. Why didn’t I know better this time?

Sweet Jeezus. Thank goodness. In the crazy state of things, and the push, push, push for $$$, I freaked and thought it might be true!

A SLIGHT PERUSAL of the laws by which the measures of vindictive and coercive justice are established will discover so many disproportions between crimes and punishments, such capricious distinctions of guilt, and such confusion of remissness and severity as can scarcely be believed to have been produced by public wisdom, sincerely and calmly studious of public happiness.

— Samuel Johnson

LODI OFFICIALS CREDIT NURSES FOR TURNING THE TOWN YELLOW

by Andrew Lutsky

LODI, CALIFORNIA – City officials spared no praise on Tuesday for the Adventist Health nurses who voted overwhelmingly last year to join the California Nurses Association, the nation’s largest union of nurses, and in doing so set the stage for Lodi to be named the world’s first fully authenticated Yellow Zone, a geographic area where humans excel cognitively as measured by IQ intelligence testing.

Blue Zones founder and evangelizer Dan Buettner appeared briefly during a ceremony held beneath the town’s Mission Arch where he confirmed Lodi’s selection and credited the nurses and their supporters for the historic accomplishment. “By asserting their right to bargain collectively in order to improve the quality of medical care in Lodi, the nurses here have led this community in its quest for outstanding intellectual achievement,” Buettner said.

To commemorate the honor and playfully connect it to the central valley town’s history, the city council approved the purchase of an oversized novelty light bulb to be installed above the head of the California Bear which has sat atop the Mission Arch since 1910. “We’re proud of these nurses and are hopeful that after decades of resistance to organized labor Adventist Health is finally recognizing the value of its workers,” Lodi Mayor Isabella Baumfree stated.

The naming of Lodi as a Yellow Zone surprised some followers of Buettner’s colored zones saga. Many predicted Loma Linda, California, would finally achieve a pastel trinity– having been previously honored for its Blue and Pink Zone bona fides– bringing the town’s hue to rest in a state of light khaki brown.

Loma Linda supporters insist that the town’s level of intellectual attainment is unsurpassed. Despite the fact that its flagship medical school does not rank among the top 193 in the nation according to U.S. News and World Report, Loma Linda University officials point with pride to its Department of Biological Sciences, which is currently tied for rank #224. “I believe that with determination and perhaps some luck we can break into the top 220 next year,” said Joseph F. Tribbiani, Jr., the school’s provost.

Challenges to the validity of Buettner’s Blue Zones have multiplied in recent years, and the movement’s founder has taken to fiercely defending the concept to which he devoted more than a decade of his career and which he transferred to Adventist Health in exchange for $78 million in 2021.

Regarding Oxford University researcher Saul Newman’s study debunking the very existence of blue zones, Buettner told Salon magazine, “The Saul Newmans of the world can find ways to poke holes, but it’s not where I want to spend my time.” Readers debated if by “the Saul Newmans of the world” Buettner was referring to Oxford University demographers in particular or to actual members of the scientific community more generally.

When a reporter in Lodi suggested Buettner identify additional Yellow Zones, he characteristically demurred. Experts have predicted he will unveil and certify at least four more Yellow Zones in the coming year.

“I know you’re all wondering the location of the next Yellow Zone,” he said with a mischievous smile. “I’ll give you this hint: It’s completely unexpected. Nurses at this locale fought Adventist Health to unionize twenty five years ago. The nurses won their case with the NLRB back then but for some reason withdrew their petition.”

“I’m hearing that many medical professionals at this locale are feeling inspired by the Lodi nurses and that this time they are determined to complete the process of unionization and in doing so secure better health outcomes– not to mention a giant yellow light bulb– for their community.”

LIKE LAZARUS?

book review by Erik S. McMahon

Famous people, especially screen and sports stars, seem to grouse a lot. Someone’s always invading their personal space, not respecting precious privacy. Of course, as mere civilians, lacking bodyguards, entourages, and nine-figure salaries, we give them little sympathy. “Comes with the territory.” That’s our usual response.

Nearly over-the-hill, but still touring, rocker McMahon, aging band-leader in Back from the Dead, by Chris Petit, is one of those wealthy whiners. He’s arrogant, decadent, predatory, and fraudulent — yet infuriated when it appears someone wants to mess with his mind.

He hires a moonlighting cop, Youselli, whose own personality’s rapidly disintegrating, as freelance security for a grandiose, orgiastic party at his estate. McMahon, though, requires more than off-duty muscle. He’s been receiving creepy letters from Leah. Thought to be dead for at least 15 years, Leah’d expired under cloudy circumstances while working as a babysitter during the band’s lascivious, long-ago, assault on France.

The rocker’s of two (or more) minds about this. He recognizes that, “Fame is a condition, it gives you real power — like politics. That’s why entertainers create a retinue. So you get to tyrannize your hairdresser, big deal. What fame does is make you a blank slate for people to scribble their fantasies on.” 

On the flip side, he admits he relishes “the idea of a relationship with a dead person.” He declares that, “The people I walk among are as good as dead, as am I. Maybe she [the letter writer] can save me from myself. Maybe we can bring each other back.” 

McMahon’s a Keith Richards type — tough to shock and preternaturally well-preserved considering regular, self-administered abuse — and is sly with his secrets. In fact, everybody in this copiously-populated novel has at least one closeted skeleton (sometimes a corpse in a trunk).

Youselli’s initiation, and immersion, are critical. He starts out as merely a jaded rent-a-cop with ho-hum contempt for those who hired him. From there, ain’t no place to go but down. 

It’s a good thing most crime novels are no longer formulaic — murder, list of suspects, interrogation, red herring, resolution. Enough, already. Now, we’ve reached the point, as in Back from the Dead, and films like The Usual Suspects, where you can count on no one as who they seem or pretend to be. 

Is McMahon’s slick, serpentine trophy wife protecting him, or subtlely setting him up? They’re both cheating, but are you sure those are their significant others? 

It’s personal and professional.

Can Youselli rely on analyses of cryptic and obsessive letters to the rock star, which he solicits from an in-house psychologist, given their own out-of-bounds relationship?

Are there really sisters, twins, and renamed, paroled childhood murderesses involved in this matter? Good questions. Petit seems intent on taking the “what the...?” factor as far as it will go. Especially in the second half, you’re never quite sure who’s doing what to whom (or, for that matter, who “whom” is).

Youselli, our supposedly reliable guide through all of this, soon is looking too involved and squirrelly to be trusted. As for those surrounding him, whose motives he urgently needs to decipher: don’t even ask.

To call this thriller (which it is, despite everything) “twisted” would be an understatement. Petit clearly regards his fellow humans as dysfunctional and debased — in their desires, their postures, and their machinations. The plot, too, is twisted; nearly, not necessarily, beyond comprehension.

Want to get left feeling manipulated and warped? Go see Memento, or read Back from the Dead. Each features both profound and flippant moments.

A defining question in the book is: “Why shouldn’t there be new strains of psychopathy? We have learned to do everything else better. We run faster, we develop better technology, we have machines the size of thumbnails that can out-think humans. Why shouldn’t we get better in other ways? Or worse?” 

(Back from the Dead, by Chris Petit. Alfred A. I (Knopf; 260 pp.; $23)

A STEP CLOSER TO LIMITLESS CLEAN ENERGY? Nuclear fusion reactor breaks record after hitting 100M degrees for almost 50 seconds - seven times hotter than sun’s core

If we want to rely on nuclear fusion to power the world’s homes, the first step is making reactors that can run as hot and as long as possible. Now, an experimental reactor called KSTAR in Daejeon, Korea, has set a new world record. The massive doughnut-shaped device, which has been dubbed ‘Korea’s artificial sun’ ran at 100 million°C (180 million°F) for 48 seconds. To put that into perspective, that’s seven times hotter than the sun’s core! The record-breaking test takes us one step closer to the ultimate goal of limitless clean energy.

(dailymail.com)

LATEST HUGE TRANSFER OF 2,000-POUND BOMBS FROM U.S. TO ISRAEL NOT NEWSWORTHY TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

by Norman Solomon

When the Washington Post revealed Friday afternoon that “the Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel,” a lot of people cared. Readers of the story posted more than 10,000 comments on its webpage. A leading progressive site for breaking news, Common Dreams, quickly followed up with coverage under a headline that began with the word “obscene.” Responses on social media were swift and strong; a tweet about the Post scoop from our team at RootsAction received more than 600,000 views.

But at the New York Times -- the nation’s purported newspaper of record -- one day after another went by as the editors determined that the story about the massive new transfer of weaponry to Israel wasn’t worth reporting on at all. Yet it was solid. A Reuters dispatch said that two sources “confirmed” the Post’s report.

By omission, the New York Times gave a boost to a process of normalizing the slaughter in Gaza, as if shipping vast quantities of 2,000-pound bombs for use to take the lives of Palestinian civilians is unremarkable and unnewsworthy. Just another day at the genocide office.

The intentional failure of the Times to report the profoundly important news of the huge new shipments of armaments was a tacit signal that the flagrant willingness of Uncle Sam to talk out of both sides of his mouth -- assisting with further carnage on a soul-corrupting scale -- was no big deal.

At the end of the weekend, I sent an email to the Times managing editor Carolyn Ryan and asked why the newspaper wasn’t covering the story at all. She passed my question along to the Times public-relations manager, who provided only a non-answer on Monday night. Here it is in full: “The New York Times has invested more than any other U.S. newspaper over the past decade to help readers understand the complexities of the Israel-Hamas conflict. We continue to report on events as they develop, both in the region, internationally and within the U.S. government.”

The complete evasion, laced with self-puffery, reflected the arrogance of media power from the single most influential and far-reaching news outlet in the United States. Rather than amplify the crucial story into the nation’s media echo chamber, the Times opted to quash it.

The saying that “justice delayed is justice denied” has a parallel for news media and war -- journalism delayed is journalism denied. The refusal of the Times to cover the story after it broke was journalistic malpractice, helping to make it little more than a fleeting one-day story instead of the subject of focused national discourse that it should have been.

The Post article had laid bare, at a pivotal historic moment, a lethal contradiction within the behavior of top U.S. government officials -- directly aiding and abetting Israel’s methodical killing of civilians in Gaza while spouting facile platitudes about them.

In its lead sentence, the piece said that the White House had okayed the new shipments of bombs and jets “despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.” The juxtaposition showed just how phony “Washington’s concerns” actually are.

“The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter,” the Post reported. “The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.”

The piece quoted an unidentified White House official who, in effect, underscored that all the talk of President Biden’s supposed distress about the ongoing massacres of civilians in Gaza has been a cruel exercise in PR smoke-blowing: “We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself. Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

Translation: We continue to support, with massive military aid, Israel’s prerogative to keep slaughtering Palestinian civilians.

If the Times editors need to grasp just how significantly horrific the 2,000-pound bombs now en route to Israel really are, they could read some reporting from their own newspaper. In December, it described those bombs as “one of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals” -- a weapon that “unleashes a blast wave and metal fragments thousands of feet in every direction.” Back then, the Times indicated that “Israel used these munitions in the area it designated safe for civilians at least 200 times,” and those 2,000-pound bombs were “a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.”

It’s a safe bet that the new transfer of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel would seem more newsworthy to the editors of the New York Times if the lives of their loved ones were at stake.

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.)

FOR ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS, THE TWO-STATE ‘SOLUTION’ ISN’T A SOLUTION AT ALL

by Tareq Baconi

After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in his State of the Union address last month.

But the call rings hollow. The language that surrounds a two-state solution has lost all meaning. Over the years, I’ve encountered many Western diplomats who privately roll their eyes at the prospect of two states — given Israel’s staunch opposition to it, the lack of interest in the West in exerting enough pressure on Israel to change its behavior and Palestinian political ossification — even as their politicians repeat the phrase ad nauseam. Yet in the shadow of what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be genocide, everyone has returned to the chorus line, stressing that the gravity of the situation means that this time will be different.…

nytimes.com/2024/04/01/opinion/two-state-solution-israel-palestine.html

I WAS STANDING IN THE TURRET eating a K-ration Breakfast Unit. A Captain in a half-track pulled up along side of my tank and asked me what the score was. I told him. We were holding up in the shade of the buildings until the doughboys finished clearing the houses. He seemed satisfied with my answer. He was just sent up to find out what was holding up the column, not to do anything about it. Suddenly he said, “What’s that? Up there — looking out of the window!”

I looked at the window he was pointing to and I saw a flash of gray. I twisted my 50 around, pointed at the window and gave the window a burst of ten rounds. An old, gray-headed woman, cut almost in half, fell from the window and landed on the cobblestones.

“It’s an old woman!” the Captain said.

I didn’t say anything. I was too embarrassed. I ducked inside the tank and told the crew what had happened, so they would know what the shooting was all about. I started to eat my K-ration again. The Captain turned around in the narrow street and drove back down the line.

I felt bad about that for several days.

— Charles Willeford

WASTED DAYS & WASTED NIGHTS

by Alexander Cockburn (2001)

Someone asked me the other day what sort of music I associate with summer. “Circus music!” I shouted, happy at the memories. Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay. The musicians on their little stage under the Big Top would usher in, year after year the season of long days, lingering twilights and just a soft patch of darkness in the wee, wee hours. In our bit of Ireland Duffy’s and later Fossett’s Famous used to come through in early June. Up would go the Big Top, and while the big spikes were being hammered in for the ropes to hold the tent, the Fabulous Fakir would be buried in full public view of a hundred urchins, to be exhumed three days later. Then, Bom Ba Bom Bom BOM, Dora the trick rider, glorious in her sequined bodice, would transmute, act by act, into Carla the contortionist, then Olga the trapeze queen a hundred feet up as the drum rolled and the MC’s voice blared, “Ladies and gentlemen, Olga will now attempt, for the first time in Ireland…”

These days circuses have gone upscale and though I’m sure it’s chockfull of great acts I can never quite bring myself to visit Cirque du Soleil, with its intimations of refinement. They probably play Mozart or New Age. Circuses to me spell the smell of horses, the crack of the MC’s whip, carny music.

It’s easier for me to remember the onset of seasons by taste than by sounds. Only this weekend I was prattling away about summers in London in the Sixties when you could eat the same meal (salmon trout, asparagus, new potatoes), presented by 30 upper class girls at 30 different dinner tables for 30 successive nights, when Barbara grew misty eyed about the summer of ‘71, dropping out in Hawai’i and listening to “Brown Sugar.” 

One of the benefits of being raised in the Bay Area rather than London, SW3. Well, screw the Rolling Stones, though Barbara did haul me along to the Concord Pavilion a few years ago to hear the Allman Brothers memorably keep the cold night at bay though marijuana was the menu du soir rather than Dr. Hoffman’s famous recipe.

Summer is the season of cheap tunes, boardwalk or bandstand blare, warm night air after the club’s din. Was it late seventies or early eighties that Freddy Fender carried us through night after night of revelry with Wasted Days and Wasted Nights? In the old days you could start drinking daiquiris, caiperinhas, Cuba Libres, margaritas, screwdrivers, champagne cocktails in mid-May and not let up or touch the ground with any serious intent till early September. Whole summers would drift by boozily, amorously. 

These days I work like a dog. Don’t we all? Even Jasper the Wonder Dog, on the receiving end of the foregoing simile, has to practice his tricks, and not just lie around in the heat, snapping at flies.

Music is distraction. Early summers in Key West where I spent the mid-eighties you could anchor maybe 500 yards off Mallory Dock, watch the crowds waiting for the sunset, listen to music from the carny types panhandling. One evening the crowd could see a fellow in some sort of a rumble or tumble with a girl in a boat. Turned out he was killing her, but no one could hear her cries. A musical cover-up, you could say. In the circuses they’d do it the other way round: music would carry you up to the moment when Olga might fall in the midst of her never-before-attempted move, then comes the roll of drums, then the silence as Olga swoops towards her partner’s outstretched hands…

* * *

BOOM BOOM BOOM. Hear it half a mile away, a kid with his amped up car stereo, replete with modish monster cable. Summer, the BOOM is louder because the windows are down. Must be up around 120 DBs. It would kill a person with normal acoustic and brain function. I step into my local bar and it’s karaoke night.

After an hour of listening to most of my neighbors, I finish my third beer and head for home. Here in Humboldt County it is summer, way too soon, godammit. The rains stopped in April, and turning over the dirt in my garden to plant corn and tomatoes it’s already dry a foot down. If it goes on like this, the fire risk by September will be horrifying.

Cheap music, summer’s sonic nutrient, feels really cheap tonight, even though I love karaoke. I put on Wagner and think of my mother, for whom a serious countenance was incumbent upon anyone listening to serious music. It probably came from her grandmother, a formidable Victorian who spoke ten languages and considered laughter to be vulgar. I try to be serious and, as the overture to Tristan unwinds, end up feeling melancholy. Even on the most languorous nights summer often has that after-taste, don’t you think?